On Wednesday, March 1 Facebook announced a new logout ad unit where advertisers could pay to have their Page posts displayed. It noted that 37 million people logout of Facebook each day in the US alone, and 105 million per month.This new ad unit is supposed to go live in April, but now Facebook tells […]

On Wednesday, March 1 Facebook announced a new logout ad unit where advertisers could pay to have their Page posts displayed. It noted that 37 million people logout of Facebook each day in the US alone, and 105 million per month.

This new ad unit is supposed to go live in April, but now Facebook tells me the Bing search experience is its live debut.

However, Facebook didn't wait long, as the social networking giant is gone live with its newly unveiled "logout page" ad unit -- a reader reported that "on Feb 2 his Facebook logout page featured a Bing search box that when used opened a Bing search results page in a separate tab," TechCruch quoted.

That means, soon when you logout of Facebook, you could be greeted with a full recreation of the Bing home page, complete with pretty photo and an active search box.

This new logout ad space is a new way for Facebook to get some new revenue. The company points out that 37 million people in the US sign out of Facebook every day with a whopping 105 million doing the same every month, which means lots of people check out the logoff page.

Other companies will be able to purchase ad space on Facebook's logoff page.

Facebook has confirmed that Bing is the first advertiser to use its new logout page ad unit.

Also, at Facebook Marketing Conference, in New York City, Facebook revealed to trusted partners that it is planning to restructure their three-year-old Preferred Developer Consultant program around 4 areas: Page management, Ads API, Insights, and custom app development. The overhaul is designed to encourage more companies to formally offer Facebook marketing services, and get brands spending more on Facebook faster.

This new unified API partner program will launch soon to replace the PDC and Ads API partner programs, and make it easier for brands to discover Facebook marketing services vendors.

According to sources close to Facebook, the company "will be granting approval badges in the 4 verticals. The new badging system will let Insights vendors and app developers show off a Facebook seal of approval, and be discoverable through an enhanced, unified lookup tool that searches across each of the core marketing partner verticals. Brands will be able to easily find vendors that sport badges for all the services they need," posted TechCrunch.

Previously, brands trying to discover relevant Facebook marketing services had to use the Preferred Developer Consultant lookup tool for Page management and marketing services shown below, or comb through a list of Ads API tools and services vendors. There was no official place for Insights vendors like PageLever or EdgeRank Checker, or custom campaign app development services. A better self-serve discovery tool will reduce work for Facebook's developer relations team, which is bombarded with requests from brands looking to be matched with relevant vendors.

Rather than asking for assistance and then blasting out requests for proposals of service to all the vendors that seem right, brands will more easily be able to home in on the best vendors for them and start spending money faster. Expect a big marketing push from Facebook to generate brand interest once it settles on a name for the program, designs the badges, and is ready to launch.

Facebook's new premium ads announced at the Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) this week -- have been creating 5 to 10 times more click-throughs and a 3X ROI lift when compared to previous units after more than two months of testing, disclosed Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook's customer marketing director.

Adding, "We are evolving from advertising to stories," Hoefflinger said. "Ads are good, but stories are better."

The new premium ads build on Sponsored Stories, the company's first social context ads iteration that launched one year ago. For at least the time being, there are no significant pricing changes to the premium ads, says Facebook.

The new premium ads, will start as a page post and later appear as an ad unit on the right side of the user's home page. From there, they will show up in users' news feeds if they have liked the brand, as well as in the news feeds of their Facebook friends. The ad also renders in mobile users' new feeds if they or their friends have liked a brand.

Lastly, the same ads will be served to users who are logging out.

"We are not selling mobile separately," Carolyn Everson, Facebook's VP of global market solutions, explained during a press Q&A at the event, which was held at the American Museum of Natural History. "We are selling them as part of the premium package."

Facebook, also debuted a new monetization product called "Reach Generator," that let Premium ad buyers pay Facebook for guaranteed news feed distribution to up to 75 percent of its fans. Facebook's Hoefflinger said that test partner Ben & Jerry's was able to reach 98 percent of its Page's fans using Reach Generator. Adding, he said the number represented a huge increase over the 16 percent of fans that Pages reach without ads or Sponsored Stories.

Facebook also unveiled the newest version of its daily deals platform called "Offers," which was in test mode during the last two months. "When a deal is claimed by a Facebook user, his or her friends will see an ad in their news feed. The action will also post to a user's Timeline," the company said.

Finally, Facebook also unveiled "Real Time Facebook Page Insights," and will be available to all businesses in the next few weeks, the company said. The new Insights are designed to let marketers promote the most engaging posts by pinning them in a new Pages feature. The company says the upgraded version should help brands attend to posted content that is performing poorly as well. The goal of the site has been to "give everyone a simple site to see how far behind you should be," states the site.

Post navigation

Deepak Gupta is a IT & Web Consultant. He is the founder and CEO of diTii.com & DIT Technologies, where he's engaged in providing Technology Consultancy, Design and Development of Desktop, Web and Mobile applications using various tools and softwares. Sign-up for the Email for daily updates. Google+ Profile.